I AM the Football Star

Chapter 235: Chapter 84: Advanced Data, Expected Goals, and Winter Transfer Targets (13,000-Word Mega Chapter) Part 4

”In the front field, it’s impossible to have two cores. After I return, as the midfield core, with the position difference, I can be compatible with him, but you can’t.”

”One of you must make a substantial sacrifice for the other.”

”On the other hand, if Becher’s comes, his market value and salary will become an issue. His current salary is already four hundred thousand, and if he transfers, his salary can only be higher.”

”I’m not jealous of his salary potentially being higher than ours, but... sometimes, in a team, salary can reflect or even determine a lot of things.”

”Even if you and I can face this point squarely, there will still be people who simply think that salary is everything, thus challenging the existing order within the team.”

”Becher’s drove away the original locker room leader when he was with Imolese!”

Lu Yang looked at Morici, and the two gradually reached a consensus on this person’s recruitment.

And a day later, Sotu called.

Sotu: ”Lu Yang, I need to discuss something with you.”

Lu Yang turned on the speaker: ”Go ahead, I’m with Morici.”

Sotu didn’t mind that Morici was also present: ”The club chairman Mr. Russell really likes Becher’s and wants to bring him in during the winter transfer window.”

Lu Yang and Morici exchanged a glance, it finally came to this.

Lu Yang was silent for a few seconds before speaking: ”Do you know about the expected goals?”

Sotu didn’t understand.

So Lu Yang hung up the phone and then initiated a video conference a minute later.

The participants of the meeting included Lu Yang, Morici, Sotu, Maniero, Arthas, and Hans.

These were the people closely associated with Lu Yang, who were trustworthy to a certain extent.

Lu Yang played some pre-prepared short videos, including highlights of the goals this season by Jose Insentis, the core of Serie A strong team Atlanta’s front line, and their main left winger.

”Expected goal value refers to the probability of a player scoring when facing a shooting opportunity,” Lu Yang explained, ”In theory, each shot, due to factors such as the environment, nearby defending players, the shooter’s own movements and state, shooting angle, shooting distance, goalkeeper’s position, and so on, has a different probability of scoring.”

”Similarly, in theory, the probability of scoring for each shot can never be 1, but infinitely close to 1.”

”We often say that goal data from lower-level leagues means nothing, and this statement is correct, but it actually reflects two aspects.”

”On one hand, the competition and rhythm in lower-level leagues are insufficient, so the goal data doesn’t carry much weight.”

”On the other hand, because those factors I mentioned earlier are relatively relaxed in lower-level leagues, scoring is not difficult.”

”And the latter is often overlooked by football professionals.”

At this point, Hans had a question: ”What does this mean? What have we overlooked?”

Maniero seemed to catch onto something and spoke up: ”Scoring ability? Is that it?”

Lu Yang nodded with a smile: ”Yes, even in lower-level leagues, through expected goals value, it’s possible to judge a player’s true offensive ability level. Although once competition and rhythm are added, these data may change, but... this is at least a lot more accurate than purely relying on personal experience.”

”Data can lie, but high-order data is often much more reliable than people’s perceptions.”

Arthas expressed interest in this notion because it meant that some of his players in secondary leagues could potentially be sold for higher prices: ”High-order data? How is it ’high-order’?”

Morici promptly played a video.

Because time was limited, he and Lu Yang had just discussed Becher’s issue the day before, and then Lu Yang created a video based on Becher’s, while also choosing Insentis, an Italian Serie A star with a similar playing style to Becher’s, for comparison.

The comparison was shocking.

”First, let’s temporarily disregard the differences in competition intensity between Serie A and Italian Third Division and look at their expected goals comparison.” Lu Yang began, ”Currently, Insentis has scored eleven goals in Serie A, while Becher’s has scored fifteen in the Italian Third Division.”

”They both scored a long shot under triple coverage this season. In the picture, Morici and I have already sorted out their surrounding environment at the moment of their shots.”

”You can see that Insentis’s expected goal value for this shot is 0.13. This means that in the same circumstances, if you take ten shots, you can score 1.3 goals; if you take a hundred shots, you can score thirteen goals.”

”This is a very difficult shot.”

”And Becher’s, although seemingly similar, actually, key variables like the position choices of the central defender and goalkeeper, the goalkeeper’s field of vision blocked by defending players, and the evasion of defenders before the shot, result in his expected goal value for this shot being as high as 0.65.”

”As everyone knows, the expected goal value for a penalty is about 0.75.”

”So...”

Maniero chimed in: ”So the seemingly similar goals, under similar circumstances, actually have a difficulty difference of almost six times! If anyone thinks Becher’s is about the same as Insentis based on this, they might suffer a major setback!”

Maniero said this with a smile because he knew the chairman of San Remo seemed to really like that Becher’s.